


Fool in Love

by greeneyes_softsighs



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Failed Mission, Fluff/Sap, Love Confessions, M/M, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2545571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeneyes_softsighs/pseuds/greeneyes_softsighs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heero follows his emotions and botches a mission. 1+3</p><p>Features some Post-war era fluff between Trowa and Heero, with Wufei and Duo as the major supporting characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fool in Love

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Sarah for giving this a read before I posted.

The marble sink was cold and slippery under Heero's palms as he white-knuckled the edge. Moisture beaded across its surface and water that continued to spray from the emergency sprinklers overhead puddled in the corners. It continued to run down his arms in rivulets, tinted pink with his blood, and soaked his hair and clothes. He stared at the pink water swirling down the sink drain, avoiding the mirror and his own reflection.

If he looked up, he'd see that he was dressed only from the waist-down in a ruined tux, and behind him he would see Trowa, fully dressed in an equally ruined tux, trying desperately to close the gash that spanned one of Heero's shoulders. The pain was white-hot, searing as the ex-Heavyarms pilot hurriedly sewed his flesh back together using their meager field-kit supplies. Heero could really only ever trust Trowa to do something like this.

"Duo should have disabled the sprinkler system by now," Heero ground out between gritted teeth, pissed that the mission had gone south and now they were stuck across the street in an evacuated hotel. The Davies Symphony Hall was in flames, billowing smoke from the hole ripped into it by several pounds of explosives, and the hotel they were inside had been rocked so badly that it tripped the security sprinklers.

"It's an old hotel," Trowa reasoned, his voice barely changed by his own frustration and anger at their mission failure. "It's likely they haven't updated their technology in favor of a more authentic experience. Almost done..."

Each tug of the needle and cat gut brought more pain, but Heero took it silently, focusing all of his anger on Duo as a distraction for the time being. It was easy to be mad at him, and, as Trowa pointed out more than a few times, it was easy to forgive him, too. When Trowa was finished, he stepped back from Heero and cleaned his bloody hands in the sink beside him. The irony of that didn't escape Heero as he watched water from the faucet mingle with that from the sprinkler, diluting the dark blood on Trowa's hands to a rusty hue.

"Are you hurt?" Heero asked, scanning the taller man's body for damage. His tux stuck to his body in places.

"Some scrapes, minor burns... Nothing serious," Trowa catalogued quietly, glancing up into the mirror to look at Heero's reflection. "Thanks to you."

Heero winced internally from the jibe and looked from Trowa to his reflection staring at him in the mirror. Trowa's hair was plastered to the side of his face, and water slid down the sloped bridge of his nose before dripping onto his lips. His voice had been even and passive, but his face belied his emotions. The expression hidden in the subtle tug of his brows and lips told Heero that the green-eyed man was furious.

"You're mad at me," Heero stated as he turned around and leaned against the counter, breaking eye contact with Trowa's reflection. His movement was sluggish and a little uncoordinated due to loss of blood, and he knew then that he and Trowa would have to wait to be extracted. They couldn't chance moving around the city wounded, not with what had just happened.

"Yes," Trowa said, voice low. That's all the answer he offered, and when Heero didn't reply or give anymore commentary, the tall man began to move restlessly across the nearly flooded bathroom. About half an inch of water had accumulated in places on the old tiled floor, and Trowa's expensive-looking black shoes sloshed through the puddles while he paced. Heero knew that was a sign he wanted to say more. It was a sign that Heero had fucked up big time. He knew why Trowa was mad, too, but being reprimanded for his own actions didn't seem very appealing at the moment.

Suddenly, the sprinklers shut off. Trowa stopped pacing and looked at the radio left on the baby changing table as Duo's voice crackled over it.

"02 to 01. Can you get to the roof from your current location? Over."

Trowa glanced over at Heero, causing the Wing pilot to stiffen, then crossed the floor in three quick strides to answer Duo's message, "03 to 02. We're taking the stairs. Over and out."

Trowa ducked down and slid Heero's good arm over his shoulder, taking most of his weight as they pushed out of the bathroom into the soggy lobby. The building was still empty as most of the emergency crews were at the Symphony hall, so they were alone as they slowly made their way up the stairs to the roof.

The chopper was waiting for them. Trowa and Heero quickly covered the ground from the stairwell door to the ledge of the building as Duo leaned out with an arm outstretched, first to help Heero up and then Trowa. The crisp winter air smelled of smoke and ash, and the chilly wind whipped up by the 'copter's blades immediately cut through the pair's soaked clothing as they settled into their seats. Duo shouted something about their luck with the wind direction after handing Heero and Trowa helmets and thick felt blankets, then all three lapsed into silence as the helicopter started moving east, away from the city toward their temporary Preventer's HQ in the Oakland.

"Shit," Duo muttered, looking out at the huge plume of black smoke marking the sky over San Francisco as they crossed the bay. The fire must have spread from the Symphony hall for it to be that huge. He glanced over at Trowa and Heero and could tell immediately that, unless he wanted to be thrown from the chopper into the ocean, he should keep his mouth shut until they made it to land.

Heero leaned forward slightly, favoring his left side, and Trowa ignored both of them with arms folded under his blanket and head tilted downward. The Wing pilot's eyes narrowed when they met Duo's, daring him to say a word about anything that had transpired. But he knew Duo wasn't that much of a jerk. The braided man gave Heero a slight shrug and leaned back in his seat, crossing his ankle over one knee to signal he was done speculating for the time being.

* * *

 

They landed in Downtown Oakland and piled into the waiting SUV that drove them to HQ. At the moment, they were put up in a small house in west Oakland. It was surrounded by warehouses and a little run down. Graffiti marked the fence that boxed in the backyard, and Duo kept saying he wanted to add to the ambiance with a little tag of his own. As the SUV pulled up out front, Duo kept his commentary to himself while helping Trowa practically drag Heero from the car to the couch inside.

"Sally's on her way right now," Wufei greeted them at the door, his voice the usual mixture of disdain and gruff apprehension. He was dressed smartly in a suit, though his tie was missing and a few of the buttons were undone. After he left the field office a couple years ago in favor of becoming a desk jockey and operations commander, Wufei's attire had slowly morphed from khakis to suits. He sometimes acted as liaison to Winner Enterprises, as well, which only made the change more noticeable.

"I'm fine," Heero mumbled. He would be, anyway, once his body could catch up to his injuries. He heard Trowa's annoyed snort overhead, but no one refuted him out right. Even Duo, the most vocal in their merry band, simply left the room for the kitchen. After a beat, Trowa headed upstairs to change, and Wufei walked around the couch to sit on a ragged arm chair across from Heero.

"What happened? This was supposed to be an easy assignment. A filler assignment," Wufei asked abruptly. He was never one to sugar coat things. Heero shifted under the now soggy blanket Duo had given him in the helo.

"I fucked up," he answered, equally abrupt. "Our initial sweep of the area suggested a low threat status. All intel pointed to a quiet night, with no chatter on backchannels to the contrary for weeks before now."

"Yes, I know that," Wufei answered, voice steely. "I've been getting reports in from the scene. Your client is alive, but might not stay that way. It's apparent they weren't the target of this attack, or they would most likely be DOA --"

A muscle jumped in Heero's jaw. Wufei was the master of backhanded insults, and he certainly wasn't pulling any punches tonight. The Wing pilot glared at him from under his slightly damp fringe and Wufei returned the look by simply narrowing his gaze. Heero was done being interrogated. Wufei could read the rest in his report.

"-- that being said, I think that it's fair to assume that since the target was not your client, however high profile they are, we will have to look into other motivating factors for this act of terrorism," Wufei stood as he finished, looking down his nose at the former Wing pilot. Heero couldn't help but think of television news anchors when the Chinese man talked, sometimes. He avoided Wufei's pointed gaze and turned slowly when Trowa returned from upstairs, now dressed in grey sweats and an over-large sweater, with a set of clothing in his arms.

Trowa nodded to Wufei in silent greeting when the Chinese man left them to head to the basement call center. He dumped the clothes onto the cushion next to Heero. Standing from the couch slowly, Heero tossed the wet blanket to the side, and began to fumble around removing the remaining bits of the tux he'd been wearing at the Symphony hall. When Trowa's nimble hands intercepted his muddy-brained effort to undress, Heero let him.

"I'm sorry," Heero found himself saying. He looked up at Trowa's down-turned face, catching a hint of a frown before the Heavyarms' pilot knelt while pulling Heero's pants and soaked underwear down off his legs. Then Heero was standing in front of him, naked, penis flaccid and a little shriveled from the cold. Duo or Wufei could walk in at any time to see him so exposed, but he didn't much care.

Trowa looked up at Heero before he stood again. He placed one strong, graceful hand on Heero's hip unconsciously. The skin under his fingers was clammy.

"For what?" Trowa asked, the anger in his green eyes from earlier had softened, but Heero could feel the tension in his voice. He could see the taught line of his neck straining, and the way his lips would shrug ever so slightly.

"For... screwing up this mission," Heero hazarded, eyes leaving Trowa's as he replied to the question. No, that wasn't the right answer, but he still couldn't bring himself to say it. He couldn't apologize for what Trowa wanted. He wasn't sorry for that. Heero raised a hand and gently traced the hollow at the base of Trowa's throat just above the collar of his sweater. He leaned down to place a soft kiss at the spot, and Trowa jumped and backed away, his hand leaving its anchored spot on Heero's hip.

"Don't," Trowa hissed in an exasperated, angry whisper. He grabbed the clothes on the couch and shoved them into Heero's hands. "Get dressed. Sally should be here soon to look at your shoulder."

After Trowa left Heero to return upstairs, the Wing pilot tugged on the underwear and soft sweatpants he had brought him before slowly making his way to join Duo in the kitchen. The braided man was cooking eggs on the stove and bopping along to some kind of oldies rock music playing quietly on his computer. When Heero sat, he felt the stitches in his shoulder pull painfully.

"Hey, man. You want some eggs?" Duo asked, glancing over his shoulder at Heero's entrance. Heero grunted an affirmative response, too tired to muster more words for the other agent. He watched Duo dish out the scrambled eggs and pull two pieces of toast from the toaster. Duo put a plate down in front of Heero and shoved a fork into his hand before taking his own seat across from the Wing pilot.

"Your shoulder looks nasty," Duo commented. "How close were you and Trowa to the blast?"

"Hn... not far," Heero replied vaguely. He was shoveling the food into his mouth, now aware of just how starving he was after a night of eating a few hor d'oeuvres and half a glass of champagne. "Trowa was closer and --" he stopped himself mid-sentence and glanced at the man across from him.  Duo raised a brow and pursed his lips knowingly. Yeah, he and Heero were close enough that he knew what was going on between the two ex-pilots.

"And yet he doesn't have more than a scratch," Duo said, nodding as the wheels began to turn. "Okay, I see what's up now. That's why he's got a bee in his bonnet. You know, if Wufei found out, or any other higher ups like Une, you're both getting canned. Or, at least, you'll be put to a long, slow death at a desk job. Dunno which would be worse, personally. Either way you'll get an earful."

"Duo..." Heero warned, eyes shadowed under his fringe.

"He's been coming to me about this for months now, ya know. Wants to get reassigned because you refuse to," Duo said, pressing Heero. Pushing his buttons was one of Duo's favorite past times. Heero hunched slightly, then regretted the action when one of the stitches popped. "But he doesn't want to leave you..."

Heero looked up and Duo gave him a sad, lopsided grin. The braided man shook his head and chuckled, then proceeded to shove some eggs and toast into his mouth. With Duo eating, and Heero eating, there was companionable silence in the room for a bit.

"You know, I think we've changed a lot since the war," Duo said after swallowing a mouthful. "You and me. Trowa. Quatre, definitely. Maybe not Wufei... he's still an asshole." Heero grunted a laugh. Yeah, Wufei was still an asshole. But both he and Duo knew how important the man was to the Preventers and to keeping peace.

"In some ways, I guess, we've changed for the better," Duo continued, waving his fork around a little as he spoke. "Back in the day, I doubt you woulda ignored the safety of your client to shield Trowa. Strictly speaking, that isn't really great for the client, but you know... you love him, don't you? That's a pretty big step from when you were Mr. Perfect Soldier.  Tin man finally got a heart."

Heero glared down at the remaining eggs on his plate. He'd never said as much to Trowa, but yes, he did love him. It had been a long and slow journey to that realization, too. Neither of them made it easy for the other, but after a few years working in the field as partners Heero found himself trusting and relying on Trowa more and more to the point where, when they finally fell into bed together one night, he was able to relinquish control and lose himself in the other man.

"Trowa doesn't trust me anymore," Heero stated after processing what Duo told him.  He looked at Duo as though to test the truth of the statement. Duo shrugged and offered a hesitant nod.

"He doesn't trust your judgement when you work with him in the field," the braided man clarified after seeing the stunned look on Heero's face. "I think tonight you sort of proved one of his worst fears."

"I'm not apologizing to him for what I did. I made the right choice. I... he... --" the doorbell interrupted him before he could really get going with the self-loathing rant. Duo patted Heero's good shoulder as he got up and left the kitchen to let Sally inside.

* * *

 

It took Sally a couple hours to properly stitch him up and transfuse some of the blood he'd lost, and by the time she left it was well past midnight and into early morning.

Heero dragged himself up the flight of stairs to the room he shared with Trowa. He wasn't quiet or stealthy by any means since Sally had given him drugs to dull the pain, despite repeated refusals. Heero leaned heavily on the open door jamb before entering the room. There were two twin beds that he and Trowa pushed together to sleep on, but it seemed that the green-eyed man had separated them. He currently occupied the one closest to the window, sleeping on his back with one arm flung above his head and one hand loosely curled around the neckline of his sweater, tugging the fabric away from his throat.

The pressure Heero felt in his chest at the sight was something new he'd been getting used to for the past few months. After the incident with Mariemaia, it had been a year before Trowa left the circus and returned to work for Preventers. They were partnered, since at the time since Duo was working as a junker, and worked together for almost three years before anything remotely intimate developed between them.

"Heero?" Trowa asked with a thread of worry in his sleepy voice. He sat up in bed slowly, squinting at the other ex-pilot silhouetted in the hallway light. Heero nodded. He shut the door behind himself as he entered the room and walked over to the unoccupied bed closest to him. Trowa watched in silence as Heero shoved them back together and climbed up, still favoring his left shoulder when he moved.

"Heero..." Trowa's voice transformed from worried to annoyed. Tired, maybe? Heero lay down on his side facing Trowa and sighed, exhausted. He could hardly see Trowa in the darkness of the room, but he could hear his soft, measured breaths and smell him. When Trowa moved to lie down again, facing Heero, the Wing pilot could detect the movement without really seeing it.

He reached out, searching for Trowa's face in the darkness. When his fingertips ghosted across the graceful arch of a cheekbone, and his palm scraped the stubble at his jaw, Heero let go of some deep breath he had been holding all this time. He pulled Trowa close and their lips met in a slow, passionate kiss that made the ache Heero felt in his bones penetrate to his heart.  Trowa made his entire body vibrate with emotion.

Trowa pulled away first. Heero felt the Heavyarms pilot's tremulous breath against his cheeks, and his warm hand as it traced over Heero's deltoid and scapula to gingerly feel out the wound that was now sewn up and bandaged across his back. "Heero, we can't do this anymore," he said, his voice soft and even, regretful. "What happened to us that it had to come to this?"

Heero knew the first 'this' meant he and Trowa together, entwined on twin beds shoved together in whatever safe house they were sharing at the moment. 'This' that meant quick kisses before and after missions celebrating the fact that they were both still alive.

The second 'this' referred to the botched job. The explosions, the screaming, the chaotic, frantic escape to a rendezvous point no one thought they needed for such a vanilla mission. The thoughtless moment Heero had shielded Trowa from the brunt of the blast, like an idiot. The mistrust Heero had shown to his partner that night.

The quiet between them stretched on as Heero fought with himself. He needed to say it. To let Trowa know that he hadn't acted out of mistrust, but out of some other raw emotion he was just getting used to. And when he did finally admit it, he wondered if Trowa would exploit the obvious weakness. That was always his strong suit.

"I'm not going to apologize for what I did," Heero said finally, his voice coming out gruff and rumbling. His fingers cradled the back of Trowa's skull firmly, brushing the nape of his neck. "Because I would do it again in a heartbeat. Because... because I can't live without you. I love you."

Trowa's fingers twitched against his bandaged skin and flattened slowly, resting on the ridges of Heero's spine between his shoulder blades. That was the only response to Heero's awkward romantic gesture for a long time, so he continued, "I'm going to apply for a transfer to admin so you can stay in the field."

"Office work?" The green-eyed man asked after a few beats of tense silence, a hint of humor in his voice even tone.  "You'll have to spend more time with Wufei."

Heero snorted and squeezed the back of Trowa's neck gently, smiling against his lips as they kissed again.  It was Trowa's turn to pull him close this time, circling an arm around his narrow waist as their chests and hips met flush against each other. The taller man slid one of his long legs between Heero's, and the Wing pilot closed his eyes as Trowa's lips brushed across his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids and his jaw. He was exhausted, and the delicate touches from his lover were soothing. They meant forgiveness.  Heero sighed in relief as he nuzzled against Trowa's throat and kissed the hollow at the base before dragging his teeth gently over his clavicle. 

In the morning they would have to deal with the fallout from the attack, the investigation and intel gathering, and it was beyond a doubt that Trowa would need to go undercover without Heero. But right now, he just lost himself in Trowa's heartbeat and his lips, drowning himself in his scent, forgetting the world for a few hours.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if the dialogue makes sense in places. I guess my Heero has most of his side of the conversation in his own head, then only verbalizes what's necessary. If it's a little abrupt, please let me know. :) 
> 
> Took a lot of liberties with this one. Figured that okay, yes, Heero has actually thrown himself in front of a few people before, but never in this type of situation and I think not in a way that would jeopardize completing his mission objective. Maybe??? Haha. 
> 
> If you can manage a kudos for support, or even some lengthy tirade about how badly I characterized Trowa and Heero in this, I will surely appreciate it!


End file.
